Felt, Buttons and Etsy

Hiya

Still busy here in Essex ! It's Grace's 2nd birthday tomorrow and I've been wrapping up all of her lovely pressies (tea sets, toasters, ironing boards, irons etc - not that we're stereo-typing her of course!). Our poor postman has been staggering up to the front door this past week bringing lots of these goodies, and today he also bought me another fabulous shipment of ceramic buttons (which are now for sale in my shop) and some felt samples. Now, I'm not trying to do my friend Sarah over at paper-and-string out of any felt sales, but I found a great company that does a wonderful range of adhesive backed felt. Me thinks a little order could be placed this week.

I finished this picture over the weekend which will be framed in a white square box frame and put for sale on my own website or maybe added to my etsy shop (minus the frame). Yes, I took the plunge and opened an etsy shop in the hope that I might be able to sell some of my goodies worldwide. Take a look over on the right hand side of the page and you can see some of the items I have for sale in my shop.

Sarah x

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hiya

So sorry I have been a bit slow on the blogging front lately. I've been fulfilling a number of orders that have been placed - why do they always seem to come at once??

NOTHS is finally picking up for me (about time too !) and I've also had a couple of orders from Tuggle. The new ceramic buttons I've started stocking on my site are proving popular and I've been trying to come up with a nice way of packaging. At the moment I've been sewing them onto coloured card which has Picture it in Stitches / Blooming Felt printed on it, but if anyone has any novel ideas which wouldn't take too much time, I'd love to hear them.

I've also created a new felt and button picture which is available for sale through my shop (scroll down to the bottom of the page) - it retails at £10 with Free Delivery. I am working on a blue circle picture along the same lines too.

Now that I'm ramping up for the Christmas fairs I've been looking into stocking a number of craft kits specifically for children. I spied these the other day and have placed an order for a number of the peg doll kits - they're absolutely fantastic (well, I think so anyway) and are suitable for ages 4 and up. Once they arrive I'll be putting some in my shop and will let you know in case you might be interested. They will be retailing at £10 each with free postage !!

And now I must go and sort out the mess that is our house - we're having all of the windows replaced and the dust is absolutely unbelievable.

Sarah x

Parties

It's Sunday evening and I am sitting in the lounge, watching Corrie and generally chilling out because I am absolutely shattered ! Anyone who read my last post will know that I've had a very busy few days with a Card & Craft Party on Friday evening and my son's 5th birthday party yesterday afternoon.

First up the Card & Craft Party. Despite leaving absolutely everything to the last minute because I was so worried about getting everything organised for the birthday party, I am amazed that I actually managed to have enough stock, fliers, order forms etc for the craft party. But I did !! I also managed to set my table up in a record 15 minutes because I had been stuck in the worst traffic jam ever and what should have been a 10 minute journey took over half an hour. But, everything fell into place at the last minute and I'm pleased to say that I did a wonderful amount of sales, even though only half the amount of people turned up that said they would. My cotton Birdie bags went down a storm, as did my loopy corsages and the miniature stitchery kits and needle felting kits were very popular. By the way, all of these items are available for sale in my shop.

I also took along a couple of new textile pictures that I finished last week. Sadly, neither of these sold, but they are for sale if anyone's interested - just email me sarah[@]pictureitinstitches.co.uk and I can give you more details.

I also meant to say in my last post that the ceramic buttons are also for sale.

At the present time I only have a very limited stock, but if they prove popular (and I've already had a couple of enquiries) I will aim to stock much larger quantities. I'm in the process of ordering a wider range, but please bear with me because they are all handmade and hand painted and because of this, delivery to me can take up to 4 weeks. But once they're here, they're here and I can ship orders out within 24 hours. I would love to know if any of my blog readers are interested (thank you Alison !), so if you are, do please let me know by leaving a comment.

So, on to the Birthday Party. I think I can safely say it was a success !! We were blessed with the most fantastic weather, which meant that the children (all 42 of them) could play in the garden and even the party games we had planned didn't happen because everyone was so busy playing outside !

We decided at the last minute to order a bouncy slide which was a real hit, although I do wonder whether we should have had insurance because there were a bumps and grazes. The slide was VERY bouncy (I know, I tried it myself) and because the children were bouncing down it rather than sliding down it, we did have a few of them bouncing right off the slide ! But they absolutely loved it.

The face painter was also a hit (aren't they always) and it was really lovely to meet all of the other parents - over half of the children that came were Sam's new classmates so it was a bit of a "getting to know you" session as well. I am thrilled to say that all of the children were absolute angels and all of Sam's new school friends are really lovely. He seems to have made friends with another Samuel who is great and I can see the pair of them having a long friendship.

Unfortunately I am a bad mother and didn't take a single photo because I was too busy, but am hoping that someone did take a few pics and I might be able to post some here at a later date. By the way - it's not actually Sam's birthday until the 1st October, but we had a shared party with one of his best friends Chloe, and her birthday was last week, so we had to choose a date in between. No doubt, Sam will have another much smaller party for family on the actual day. Hopefully I won't have to go to as much effort with that one !!

Enjoy what's left of the weekend !

Sarah x

Felt and Stuff

Hiya


As promised in my previous post, this one will definitely be "crafty".


I've been a very busy bee getting ready for my friend's card & craft party on Friday evening. These are some of the things that I've created and will be taking along with me:

Felted and Beaded keyrings

Beaded felt circles which will be framed into a small picture

My funny long-legged birdie stitched onto the front of a calico tote bag

Loopy corsages waiting for some of these ....

.... lovely hand-painted ceramic buttons to be added to their centres !

And in between all this craftiness, I've also been attempting to organise Sam's 5th birthday party on Saturday for around 50 ... yes 50 ... children !

I'm off to stuff party bags

Byeeeeee xx

Mixed Emotions

We went to school today
My little boy and I
I worried all through breakfast
Afraid that he might cry
I watched him walk away with pride

And I was quite alone
The tears I thought would surely be his
Are indeed my very own

Yes, my little boy is now officially a big boy ! He absolutely loved his first day, but I am ashamed to say that I walked away from the classroom with tears streaming down my cheeks. Of course, I don't want to mother him for the rest of his life, but I can't help but feel that I lost a little bit of him today. He seemed so grown up when he came out of school and whilst he wasn't very forthcoming with information about what he'd got up to, I could tell he wanted school to be his domain and not something I need to know about.

So now I just have my little Gracie at home with me who is lost without her big brother and has taken to shouting out random words including oi, bogie, delicious ...... in that particular order. Now that is something I really should be worrying about !!!

My next post will be craft related ..... I PROMISE !!

Sarah xx

A Day Off

Hiya

Today has been a day off for me, Paul and Sam. We decided to treat our little man to a day in London before he officially becomes a big boy and starts school next week. Grace was in nursery all day so Sam could have a whole day of mummy & daddy's attention without little sis butting in all the time !

After having to deal with the stresses of late running and overcrowded trains, we finally arrived (late) for our trip on the Eye, so had to postpone that until this afternoon after our boat trip and lunch at TGI Friday in Covent Garden.

Amazingly, after we got back to the Eye at 2.30 the queues had virtually disappeared and we were able to walk straight on.

After that we had a go on the carousel and looked at all the real life statues, which amused Sam no end, particularly the headless man who kept waving and giving Sam the thumbs up - "how can he do that mummy when he can't even see me ?"

Then battle our way back to Liverpool Street on hot and busy underground trains to get the train home, only to find the previous train had been cancelled so there was 2-trains worth of people crammed onto one ! So Paul decided to upgrade us and we came home First Class. Oh how the other half live !!!

I must just tell you about my new obsession - FLICKR. For anyone that hasn't looked at it - you really must. It's SO addictive. I could (and actually do) spend hours looking at all the wonderful photos on there and joining up to all the Groups that interest me. It has certainly increased hits on my website and has even bought in a couple of sales too ! Go on - have a look. You know you want to !!!

Sarah x

And the winner is.......

Sarah from paper-and-string !!!

Thank you to all 3 of you that entered the competition (obviously not many people want to give needle-felting a go!) even though it was open to everybody and not just people called Sara/Sarah !!! But I really appreciate all your keyword suggestions and they will all be included in my Adwords campaign.

So paper-and-string Sarah, CONGRATULATIONS !! Let me know whether you'd like a pencil case or purse, and your choice of 3 colours of wool from my shop and the whole prize will be winging its way to you very soon ;o)

It has been VERY hot here the last few days and I was planning on having a restful weekend before I start manically producing Christmas stock. Unfortunately that didn't happen because I decided, in my wisdom, to do a Boot Fair today so spent all of Friday evening and most of yesterday afternoon sorting out boxes of stuff in the garage that we never unpacked when we moved last year and then pricing it all up. It was worth it though because I made a nice little sum (even though I only managed to sell half of it). Although I'm not sure my back and shoulders will thank me as I very stupidly didn't put any suntan cream on so am suffering this evening :o(

Last week I finished the wholesale order of scarves and was very pleased with the way they turned out.

If you are interested in one of these scarves, just email me (sarah(@)pictureitinstitches.co.uk) and I'll happily do one for you.

I also did a custom order of beaded felt bracelets for a customer via NOTHS

And managed to knock out 10 of my felted and beaded keyrings for the NOTHS Christmas press campaign. I really hope they go to some of the nice mags/supplements and get featured.

And talking of features .... I was extremely lucky to win a competition I entered recently. The prize was to have my press release and a number of my products distributed by a top PR agency to all of the National and Local Press !!! How lucky am I ??!! So, if you happen to see any of my little old products featured anywhere, I would REALLY appreciate it if you would please cut them out and send them to me.

Enjoy the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend.

See you soon x